Tuesday, 22 July 2014

Well, the bad news was delivered to me yesterday - my laptop is no more and since my budget doesn't stretch to a new one quite yet it does put a damper on things blog-wise.

As you can see, I can still post, but adding my own pictures is going to be a bit of a task (especially since all my photos to date went down with the ship).

So what have I been up to? Well, watching a lot of old TV episodes on YouTube for one thing. I thought I might share with you some of my favourites today. If you've never seen them, they are well worth checking out and if you have seen them . . . well I think they're still worth checking out again.

I absolutely love those reality programs where they have a group of "moderns" live as though they were in the past (I'm guessing reader, that you probably share this love if you're reading my blog). The seventeenth century is not one of my usual time periods of interest (I gave up Renaissance Faires when I was in Jr High), but this is pretty fascinating stuff and makes me definitely appreciate my modern life - I don't think I would last a minute wrangling livestock or beating my laundry in the river and as for eating let alone slaughtering my own meat . . .

I missed this one when it aired here last December and just recently discovered it. Essentially, all of Britain's best loved TV gardeners present a segment on why we should revive a past style of gardening that has fallen out of favour. Now you won't usually find me watching gardening television, but I've been taking some tentative steps into our front garden this Summer, trying to come up with something period appropriate to our little Victorian terrace house and this has been quite helpful (especially the episode on cottage gardens).

Ms Worsley is a huge favorite here in the B household. A few weeks ago, after hearing that she had recently been in Northern Ireland I commented to Mr B "Y'know, she is one of the few 'celebrities' [i.e. someone regularly on the TV] who I would ask to take a picture with". If you don't know Lucy Worsley you should definitely check her out. All of her programs are great and she's an absolute joy to watch.

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

This is just a quick post to tell you that I did not drop off the face of the earth, however it looks as though my trusty laptop may have done so.

Two weeks ago the screen on my lap top died, so I scheduled an appointment with my local Apple store "geniuses". Mr B and I nearly died laughing when they brought us back a little print out that said something to the effect of "Due to your computer being a vintage model, we are unable to work on it at this location". (Yes, it really did say "vintage"!).

The "geniuses" were nice though and suggested a repair place just outside of town, so that is where my laptop is at the moment, seeing if they can source the "vintage" parts that are needed to make my computer run again.

At this point, all is definitely not lost, just out of action til further notice, and I am set here typing away on Mr B's new iPad.

And now let me digress for a moment. Back when I was a youngster, my mother sent me to typing classes as she felt everyone should know how to type. With hindsight, I am now very grateful for this every time I watch someone without these skills try to type something on a QWERTY keyboard. Let's get this straight, I am no record holding speed typer, but I do alright.

Now to get back to my point - I absolutely cannot stand typing things out on a touch screen. It feels so slow and I feel so clumsy. So until my laptop is fixed, or until a similar solution is found (new lap top perhaps? Sadly not in the budget until next Summer), posting around here might be a bit sparse.